You don't understand the WHY of those gains.
A deflationary environment is the only real environment, that is why central banks are set up to fight deflation, because deflation is the natural order of things.
And in that real environment, gains in productivity are only possible because of savings, people invest not because of fear, the investments takes place because people truly believe the business proposals will produce VALUE, and hence REAL GAINS, which necessitates that people be not drowning in debt. That is why an inflationary system is a bubble system, it cannot be sustained on its own. It is a perpetual motion machine, or tries to be anyways.
Society has made a lot of progress, but the price has been an unprecedented amount of debt. In essence, we've mortgage the future, and at some point those bills will be paid either by will of by force.